Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Press Freedom: Different Approaches, One Cause
Violating people’s rights of having a free press has not always been a government’s practice. According to some media experts, economic, political and professional considerations might escalate these violations and impede the free flow of information.
Discussing the issue of ‘Press Freedom” came in the seventh session of a six-week workshop organized by Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW. The workshop is titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
A blend of media experts and human rights activists presented their perspectives of the ‘press freedom’ issue. A German human rights activist and three Egyptians, a theologian, an academic and a lawyer adopted different approaches in addressing the issue, but regardless of their differences, they have worked for one cause.
“Freedom of expression exists in societies with varying degrees. The amount of freedom individuals enjoy depends on economic and political variables. Economically powerful countries tend to respect it more than countries of poor economy,” said Dr. Jihan Rachty, Former Dean of Cairo University’s faculty of Mass Communication and professor of Mass Communication at the Misr International University.
Even within the same society, there is a tendency to restrict freedom of expression at times of economic or political crisis. “In the USA, freedom of expression was restricted during the 1930s when the American economy was not doing fine. Again, after the September 11 events, we saw a similar tendency because the country experienced a crisis,” Rachty explained.
Nevertheless, government’s attempts to impose restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the media are not acceptable. “The state should not intervene in the ‘media decision’,” she added.
Violations of freedom of expression are not always due to governmental practices and interventions. “Sometimes, we find market forces negatively affecting media freedom. When the media financially depend on the advertisers, they tend to abuse the media to propagate for certain ideas that serve their interests,” Rachty said.
Agreeing with her, Amir Salem, a human rights lawyer and activist, blamed both the political regime and the journalists of violating freedom of expression. “In a country like Egypt, the political system is underdeveloped. On one hand, neither do we have a powerful democratic parliament nor active political parties that can practice democracy as it should be,” Salem said.
On the other hand, he said, journalists’ practices sometimes are threatening the right of freedom of expression. Some journalists serve the state’s institutions, specially the state’s security authority. Others blackmail the society’s public figures and businessmen. Journalists’ professional malpractices create what we call the yellow press or ‘outrageous newspapers’, Salem said.
There is a need for journalists who are conscious and who are well aware of their countries problems, Rachty and Salem stressed. “Journalists of that type do not leave a room for the state to intervene and impose more restrictions on freedom of expression,” Rachty pointed out.
Unfortunately, some journalists act like judges accusing ministers, businessmen and other public figures, but without having enough evidences or supporting documents. They fail to distinguish between being a ‘watch dog’ and being a judge. “As a journalist, you do not have the authority of labeling any figure guilty until the court rules he is guilty,” Salem said.
Due to a series of cases where Egyptian public figures fell victims of libel and slander and invasion of privacy, the government imposed more restrictions in 1996. “Egyptian journalists face imprisonment and heavy fines in libel offenses, a matter that we do not accept,” Rachty said. “Imposing heavy fines on papers violating the law of libel and slander is an appropriate sentence, but sending journalists to jail because of their opinion is not acceptable,” she added.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalist, CPJ, “Between 1998 and 2000, six Egyptian journalists were jailed for libel and other criminal offenses related to their work. Three of them have been imprisoned more than once.”
“Tough provisions in Egypt's Press Code, approved in 1996, stipulate prison sentences of up to one year for journalists convicted of defamation, or up to two years if a public official files the suit. Fines can reach £E20,000 (US$4,400) for each offense. Other crimes—such as "inciting hatred," "violating public morality," "harming the national economy," and offending a foreign head of state—carry prison sentences of one to two years,” CPJ stated in its web site, www.wjp.org
While the Egyptian perspective of freedom of expression and press freedom traces violations to the country’s political and economic problems, the German experience sounded totally different.
The German print and broadcast media are free and independent, their coverage spanning the full spectrum of political views, said Dr. Otmar Oehring, Head of Missio Human Rights Office.
Neither are fines imposed on journalists nor imprisonment sentence. When a person brings a case of libel or slander before the court, it usually rules that the same publication must run a story, of the same size and location, denying and apologizing, Oehring said.
To be continued.
Yomna Kamel
Violating people’s rights of having a free press has not always been a government’s practice. According to some media experts, economic, political and professional considerations might escalate these violations and impede the free flow of information.
Discussing the issue of ‘Press Freedom” came in the seventh session of a six-week workshop organized by Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW. The workshop is titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
A blend of media experts and human rights activists presented their perspectives of the ‘press freedom’ issue. A German human rights activist and three Egyptians, a theologian, an academic and a lawyer adopted different approaches in addressing the issue, but regardless of their differences, they have worked for one cause.
“Freedom of expression exists in societies with varying degrees. The amount of freedom individuals enjoy depends on economic and political variables. Economically powerful countries tend to respect it more than countries of poor economy,” said Dr. Jihan Rachty, Former Dean of Cairo University’s faculty of Mass Communication and professor of Mass Communication at the Misr International University.
Even within the same society, there is a tendency to restrict freedom of expression at times of economic or political crisis. “In the USA, freedom of expression was restricted during the 1930s when the American economy was not doing fine. Again, after the September 11 events, we saw a similar tendency because the country experienced a crisis,” Rachty explained.
Nevertheless, government’s attempts to impose restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the media are not acceptable. “The state should not intervene in the ‘media decision’,” she added.
Violations of freedom of expression are not always due to governmental practices and interventions. “Sometimes, we find market forces negatively affecting media freedom. When the media financially depend on the advertisers, they tend to abuse the media to propagate for certain ideas that serve their interests,” Rachty said.
Agreeing with her, Amir Salem, a human rights lawyer and activist, blamed both the political regime and the journalists of violating freedom of expression. “In a country like Egypt, the political system is underdeveloped. On one hand, neither do we have a powerful democratic parliament nor active political parties that can practice democracy as it should be,” Salem said.
On the other hand, he said, journalists’ practices sometimes are threatening the right of freedom of expression. Some journalists serve the state’s institutions, specially the state’s security authority. Others blackmail the society’s public figures and businessmen. Journalists’ professional malpractices create what we call the yellow press or ‘outrageous newspapers’, Salem said.
There is a need for journalists who are conscious and who are well aware of their countries problems, Rachty and Salem stressed. “Journalists of that type do not leave a room for the state to intervene and impose more restrictions on freedom of expression,” Rachty pointed out.
Unfortunately, some journalists act like judges accusing ministers, businessmen and other public figures, but without having enough evidences or supporting documents. They fail to distinguish between being a ‘watch dog’ and being a judge. “As a journalist, you do not have the authority of labeling any figure guilty until the court rules he is guilty,” Salem said.
Due to a series of cases where Egyptian public figures fell victims of libel and slander and invasion of privacy, the government imposed more restrictions in 1996. “Egyptian journalists face imprisonment and heavy fines in libel offenses, a matter that we do not accept,” Rachty said. “Imposing heavy fines on papers violating the law of libel and slander is an appropriate sentence, but sending journalists to jail because of their opinion is not acceptable,” she added.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalist, CPJ, “Between 1998 and 2000, six Egyptian journalists were jailed for libel and other criminal offenses related to their work. Three of them have been imprisoned more than once.”
“Tough provisions in Egypt's Press Code, approved in 1996, stipulate prison sentences of up to one year for journalists convicted of defamation, or up to two years if a public official files the suit. Fines can reach £E20,000 (US$4,400) for each offense. Other crimes—such as "inciting hatred," "violating public morality," "harming the national economy," and offending a foreign head of state—carry prison sentences of one to two years,” CPJ stated in its web site, www.wjp.org
While the Egyptian perspective of freedom of expression and press freedom traces violations to the country’s political and economic problems, the German experience sounded totally different.
The German print and broadcast media are free and independent, their coverage spanning the full spectrum of political views, said Dr. Otmar Oehring, Head of Missio Human Rights Office.
Neither are fines imposed on journalists nor imprisonment sentence. When a person brings a case of libel or slander before the court, it usually rules that the same publication must run a story, of the same size and location, denying and apologizing, Oehring said.
To be continued.
Yomna Kamel
Monday, July 28, 2003
Bridging the Gap
When the BBC played the Azan in the background of a documentary on violence, Muslims were offended although a British reporter of Middle East Affairs said it was unpremeditated. But when it stopped referring to Israel’s planned killings of Palestinians as ‘assassinations’ and started using ‘targeted killings’ instead, it was inevitable to call it intentional misreporting of Arab affairs.
Such misreporting of Arab affairs is also a blatant practice by the American media, according to some Western experts in Middle East Affairs.
“Just as the BBC last month ordered its reporters to use the phrase “targeted killings” for Israel’s assassination of Palestinians, CNN –under constant attack from right-wing Jewish lobby groups- has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo (Bayt Gala) as a “Jewish settlement,” said Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper, the Independent. “They must call the settlement, built illegally on occupied Arab land outside Jerusalem, “a Jewish neighborhood”.”
The debate over Western media coverage of Middle East affairs has been the topic of several heated discussions since the September 11th events, the latest of which came in a session organized by Al-Ahram Regional Institute for Journalism in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW.
The session, Bridging the Divide: Arab image in Western media, was an episode of a six-week workshop titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
Though the participants in the panel discussion accepted the assumption that there is misreporting of Arab affairs by Western media, they presented different perspectives of the causes and the solutions.
Intentional and unintentional misreporting:
Cornelis Hulsman, Ds., editor-in-chief of RANSAW and coordinator of the workshop, believes there are one-sided reports in the West about the Arab World and for the purpose of responding to those reports; the RANSAW was founded in 1997.
Hulsman recalled some distorted reports produced by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington (MEMRI). “Such reports are usually based on quotes and comments taken out of context. Responding to the deliberate biased reporting should be by giving facts away from emotional reactions,” he said.
Bad intentions are not always behind distorted reporting about the Arab world.
“Sometimes distortions give the impression they were done on purpose. I believe you have to be very careful presuming this. Too often bad intentions were presumed while in fact they were not”, he added.
Andrew Hammond, Reuters’ correspondent in Cairo, agreed with Hulsman that not all Western media are biased. “It depends on the type of media: wire service, television or print media. When talking about news agencies’ practices, they are closer to objectivity more than any other medium. But sometimes, as a news agency’s reporter, you have to report others’ comments as they are even if you do not believe or disagree with.”
Hammond said he interviewed a US Department of State’s representative at the US Embassy in Cairo and the comments he gave were neither acceptable nor true, but he had to put them in his story because it was his duty as a reporter.
Television and print media produce in-depth stories and have rooms for analysis and opinions, which might distort sometimes the image, as it is the case with the Palestinians. ‘There is a debate going on in the BBC about its pro-Israeli reporting,” Hammond said. “That is why we should not generalize by saying all Western media are biased.”
Why the image is distorted:
From a journalistic perspective, the Western media, according to Hammond, is interested in covering issues like women and Islam, violence and Islam, sex and Islam, the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism, lack of democracy, human rights, circumcision and economic reform.
Unfortunately, the coverage of such issue helps distort the image of Arabs more because the West does not respect Arab countries for lack of democracy and for their continual denial of their problems, Hammond said.
“The West respects countries that admit their problems. Adding to this, good news coming from Egypt is quite few. Economic reform is slow and the political scene is still,” he added.
Abdel Menaem Saeed, PhD, head of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, tackled the problem from a historical perspective.
“The issue of image has historical roots started with classifying Islam as an Eastern religion and Christianity as the religion of the West though both emerged and embraced in the East. Such classification suggested several clashes between the East and the West,” Saeed explained.
The gap was even widened by the Western media, which failed to truthfully report the Arab affairs. “The language bar contributes to the problem and I don’t mean just understanding the language, but the ‘soul’ of the language,” he said.
Quoting Bahgat Qurani, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, Saeed said, “The image of the Arab in the Western media can be put in six Bs: the Bedouin, the belly dancer, the bazaar, the bomber and the backward.” “Along with such gloomy stereotyping of the Arab, there is a deliberate disregarding of the region’s good news.”
Egypt’s role in several international occasions and Arab contributions in human relief activities are not given proper coverage by the Western media, he said.
Disregarding the region’s good news and misreporting the Arab affairs especially the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict are not essentially intentional, V. Windfuhr, chairman of the Foreign Press Association and Correspondent of the German newspaper, Der Spiegel commented.
“Despite all books and publications issued about the region, still there is ignorance of basic facts about the area. A foreign correspondent of a prominent Western paper asked me once: Why Arafat wants Jerusalem? The question stunned me,” Windfuhr said.
Some journalists are sent to the region with no knowledge of the language and the culture. Their misreporting of the Arab affairs doesn’t reflect certain political attitudes, but it is the outcome of a different cultural and media environment they lived in, he explained.
Changing the Arab discourse…changing the Western stereotypes
Although uprooting long-lived stereotypes that have been reinforced by a serial of events since September 11th 2001 is not an easy problem to tackle in a single workshop where Western and Arab journalists exchanged their views, the panel discussion’s participants presented a number of solutions, each of which is worth studying.
While Windfuhr stressed the importance of having well-qualified journalists covering the Middle East Affairs, Hammond suggested solutions at two levels: the governmental and the non-governmental.
The Arab governments should be more frank and talk freely about their problems in order to gain the West’s respect and revamp their image in the Western media. At non-governmental level, the Arabs should give up talking about what should be done and what should not be and start taking actions.
“In Israel we find them keen to follow what is written about them in the Western media and keen to respond and pressurize the media to change whatever deemed anti-Israeli reporting. The Arabs should do the same,” Hammond said.
Both Hulsman and Saeed believed the solution should come from the Arab media. Changing the rough violent Arab discourse to a smooth dialogue will enable us to explain our points of view. “Imagine we have turned the sound off while watching Al Jazeera’s program ‘The Opposite Direction’. We will watch violent facial and body expressions which reflect the sort of discourse the Arabs have,” said Saeed.
Egyptian media articles are too emotional. Writers mix their own opinions with the obtained facts, a thing that is used against them by some Western media like the MEMRI. It is important for journalists to make a distinction between factual reporting and opinions to escape being misused, Hulsman concluded.
Yomna Kamel
Such misreporting of Arab affairs is also a blatant practice by the American media, according to some Western experts in Middle East Affairs.
“Just as the BBC last month ordered its reporters to use the phrase “targeted killings” for Israel’s assassination of Palestinians, CNN –under constant attack from right-wing Jewish lobby groups- has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo (Bayt Gala) as a “Jewish settlement,” said Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper, the Independent. “They must call the settlement, built illegally on occupied Arab land outside Jerusalem, “a Jewish neighborhood”.”
The debate over Western media coverage of Middle East affairs has been the topic of several heated discussions since the September 11th events, the latest of which came in a session organized by Al-Ahram Regional Institute for Journalism in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW.
The session, Bridging the Divide: Arab image in Western media, was an episode of a six-week workshop titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
Though the participants in the panel discussion accepted the assumption that there is misreporting of Arab affairs by Western media, they presented different perspectives of the causes and the solutions.
Intentional and unintentional misreporting:
Cornelis Hulsman, Ds., editor-in-chief of RANSAW and coordinator of the workshop, believes there are one-sided reports in the West about the Arab World and for the purpose of responding to those reports; the RANSAW was founded in 1997.
Hulsman recalled some distorted reports produced by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington (MEMRI). “Such reports are usually based on quotes and comments taken out of context. Responding to the deliberate biased reporting should be by giving facts away from emotional reactions,” he said.
Bad intentions are not always behind distorted reporting about the Arab world.
“Sometimes distortions give the impression they were done on purpose. I believe you have to be very careful presuming this. Too often bad intentions were presumed while in fact they were not”, he added.
Andrew Hammond, Reuters’ correspondent in Cairo, agreed with Hulsman that not all Western media are biased. “It depends on the type of media: wire service, television or print media. When talking about news agencies’ practices, they are closer to objectivity more than any other medium. But sometimes, as a news agency’s reporter, you have to report others’ comments as they are even if you do not believe or disagree with.”
Hammond said he interviewed a US Department of State’s representative at the US Embassy in Cairo and the comments he gave were neither acceptable nor true, but he had to put them in his story because it was his duty as a reporter.
Television and print media produce in-depth stories and have rooms for analysis and opinions, which might distort sometimes the image, as it is the case with the Palestinians. ‘There is a debate going on in the BBC about its pro-Israeli reporting,” Hammond said. “That is why we should not generalize by saying all Western media are biased.”
Why the image is distorted:
From a journalistic perspective, the Western media, according to Hammond, is interested in covering issues like women and Islam, violence and Islam, sex and Islam, the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism, lack of democracy, human rights, circumcision and economic reform.
Unfortunately, the coverage of such issue helps distort the image of Arabs more because the West does not respect Arab countries for lack of democracy and for their continual denial of their problems, Hammond said.
“The West respects countries that admit their problems. Adding to this, good news coming from Egypt is quite few. Economic reform is slow and the political scene is still,” he added.
Abdel Menaem Saeed, PhD, head of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, tackled the problem from a historical perspective.
“The issue of image has historical roots started with classifying Islam as an Eastern religion and Christianity as the religion of the West though both emerged and embraced in the East. Such classification suggested several clashes between the East and the West,” Saeed explained.
The gap was even widened by the Western media, which failed to truthfully report the Arab affairs. “The language bar contributes to the problem and I don’t mean just understanding the language, but the ‘soul’ of the language,” he said.
Quoting Bahgat Qurani, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, Saeed said, “The image of the Arab in the Western media can be put in six Bs: the Bedouin, the belly dancer, the bazaar, the bomber and the backward.” “Along with such gloomy stereotyping of the Arab, there is a deliberate disregarding of the region’s good news.”
Egypt’s role in several international occasions and Arab contributions in human relief activities are not given proper coverage by the Western media, he said.
Disregarding the region’s good news and misreporting the Arab affairs especially the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict are not essentially intentional, V. Windfuhr, chairman of the Foreign Press Association and Correspondent of the German newspaper, Der Spiegel commented.
“Despite all books and publications issued about the region, still there is ignorance of basic facts about the area. A foreign correspondent of a prominent Western paper asked me once: Why Arafat wants Jerusalem? The question stunned me,” Windfuhr said.
Some journalists are sent to the region with no knowledge of the language and the culture. Their misreporting of the Arab affairs doesn’t reflect certain political attitudes, but it is the outcome of a different cultural and media environment they lived in, he explained.
Changing the Arab discourse…changing the Western stereotypes
Although uprooting long-lived stereotypes that have been reinforced by a serial of events since September 11th 2001 is not an easy problem to tackle in a single workshop where Western and Arab journalists exchanged their views, the panel discussion’s participants presented a number of solutions, each of which is worth studying.
While Windfuhr stressed the importance of having well-qualified journalists covering the Middle East Affairs, Hammond suggested solutions at two levels: the governmental and the non-governmental.
The Arab governments should be more frank and talk freely about their problems in order to gain the West’s respect and revamp their image in the Western media. At non-governmental level, the Arabs should give up talking about what should be done and what should not be and start taking actions.
“In Israel we find them keen to follow what is written about them in the Western media and keen to respond and pressurize the media to change whatever deemed anti-Israeli reporting. The Arabs should do the same,” Hammond said.
Both Hulsman and Saeed believed the solution should come from the Arab media. Changing the rough violent Arab discourse to a smooth dialogue will enable us to explain our points of view. “Imagine we have turned the sound off while watching Al Jazeera’s program ‘The Opposite Direction’. We will watch violent facial and body expressions which reflect the sort of discourse the Arabs have,” said Saeed.
Egyptian media articles are too emotional. Writers mix their own opinions with the obtained facts, a thing that is used against them by some Western media like the MEMRI. It is important for journalists to make a distinction between factual reporting and opinions to escape being misused, Hulsman concluded.
Yomna Kamel
Searching for Common Values in Reporting the Arab-Israeli Conflict
When the New York Times reported the killing of a 10 months old Israeli baby girl and a four months old Palestinian baby girl in two separate stories earlier this year, the Palestinian Media Watch used them as evidences of what it called the US media pro-Israeli coverage of the conflict.
The Palestinian Media Watch analysed the stories and found out the headline used for the Israeli victim’s story was straightforward, active voice, directly accusing the Palestinians (Palestinians Kill Baby Girl in West Bank), while the magazine used a circuitous headline accusing the Israeli guns, not Israelis of killing a Palestinian baby (Littlest Victim in the Mideast: Israeli Guns Kill 4-month-old).
A photo of the Israeli baby, Shalhevet Pass, in her parents’ arms was shown with the story while no such a photo of the Palestinian baby, Iman Hajjo, was shown. “Both stories did not include a single quote from a Palestinian official while generous quotes (highlighted in light blues) from the Israeli Prime Minster, Ariel Sharon, and other officials were provided,” the Palestinian Media Watch stated.
Such a way of reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict might have reinforced Arabs’ beliefs that they are not fairly treated by the US media and prompted them to accuse it of being biased. If the American news media are really biased, why are they so and what should the Arabs do to gain better coverage of their news?
In an attempt to answer these questions, Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW, invited two Western media experts to a session of a six-week workshop titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
Ralph Berenger, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo and Arne Fjeldstad, an associate professor of communication at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Communication Excellence, focused their discussion on the framing theory as a possible explainer of the way the Arab-Israeli conflict in reported.
Framing, according to Berenger, is how people make up their minds about a given situation. It is trying to explain how people get pieces of information, accept them, and perceive them through the process of selective perception. In perceiving information, people are affected by two internal mechanisms: the core opinion frame and the peripheral opinion frame.
The core opinion refers to the individual’s strongly held values and attitudes that are difficult to change while the peripheral opinion refers to the individual’s world view and the things that interest him. When receiving new pieces of information, the peripheral opinion frame selects what should be perceived and what should not according to values and attitudes held in the core opinion frame, he said.
When reporting stories, media practitioners tend to frame the issues affected by their core and peripheral opinion frames. “Each reporter is first a citizen of his country of choice or of birth and his primary loyalties to it,” Berenger said. Reporters are affected by their loyalties and sometimes they add to the problems by slanting, choosing what to cover and ignoring some aspects that might, if reported, help smooth the situation, he added.
Some reporters even distort the facts to fit in pre-conceived actions. They pre-conceive the stories before doing it. They come with certain bias out of their core opinion frame, he said.
Berenger discussed an example of framed reporting. There were eleven pictures taken by the AFP of a Palestinian man while being stopped and shot by Israeli soldiers in a checkpoint. Excluding a picture of a dynamite belt the Palestinian man had around his body or in the car makes up a different story.
Let the Truth speaks out:
Though Berenger admitted the hardness of getting out the truth, he said professional media practitioners could overcome their biases in reporting through recognizing their own preconceived ideas about the stories before they cover. “A professional knows himself or herself and his or her biases. First step is to recognize them,” he said.
Journalists should also understand that their coverage contributes to “a spiral of silence” among their readers and viewers. Berenger stated that spiral of silence is a common phenomenon in our societies where “voices that differ from ours are stilled by overwhelming covering and the perception that their comments are unwelcome or could even draw a hostile response if they differ from the accepted line.”
The third solution he suggested was to encourage editors to select photographs and stories that tell the story without inflaming the public emotions. Most important of all, according to Berenger, is to search for common values.
“Try to identify your personal frames and how they fit with universal values. Then, try to analyze the opposition’s frames and how they fit with universal values,” he said. “These values define our ‘humaness’. Some universal values that cut across religious, ethnic, cultural and social boundaries are truth, love, loyalty, honesty, freedom, respect, pursuit of happiness and the desire to be safe.”
A view from Europe:
Though the accusation of being biased is not only directed for the US media, but extends to the European continent also, Arne Fjeldstad said there has been a noticeable shift in the European media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The European media tend to be pro-Palestinians because of Europeans’ perception of the word ‘occupation’. “After years of suffering from the German occupation, the Europeans have understood the meaning of occupation,” he said.
Fjeldstad presented what he called ‘the Potter Box’, which attempts to explain how journalists should frame their reporting. “The Potter Box contains four steps. The first is the empirical definition, which is related to understanding the facts about the issue of concern, and the second is to identify the values, which involves outlining the values inherent in the decision. The third step is appeal to ethical principles and the four is choosing loyalty,” he said.
Though Fjeldstad’s view of media practitioners’ duty seemed far theoretical than Berenge’s, both highlighted the need for journalists who understand the problems they are reporting and who have the power and responsibility to go beyond their own loyalties for the sake of revealing the facts.
Instead of framing the stories in a way that serves the journalist’s own interests and loyalties, Fjeldstad said it is legitimate for the journalist to add his own description of the situation after presenting the facts, but he has to clearly tell his readers that these ideas are his.
Attention given to the coverage of Arab news, especially the Arab Israeli conflict, has been mounting since the September 11th attack on the US.
A month before Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with RNSAW, organised its six-week workshop, the World Association for Christian Communication, WACC’s, the North American Regional Association, NARA-WACC, and the U.S. National Council of Churches’ Communication Commission co-organized a conference titled “Megaphones and Muffled Voices: What Constitutes Full and Fair Media Coverage of Israeli-Palestinian Issues?”
More than more 80 journalists and academics of diverse affiliations participated in the conference and agreed on a code of practices.
According to Carol J. Fouke-Mpoyo, a media liaison at the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.SA, the code of practices they have reached include these points:
· “The best of journalists do not only report what they see, hear or are told by official sources. They dig beneath the surface. They strive to get the other side or sides of the story.
· Balance of coverage is not achieved only in providing equal space or time to each side. There is no balance when an articulate, moderate and charismatic person is asked to represent one side and an uncompromising, militant, fiery and inarticulate ideologist is offered as a representative of the other side.
· Headlines should reflect the content of the story. Photographs should give a fair and accurate image of an event and not exaggerate an incident simply because the photograph is exceptionally dramatic.
· As much as possible, journalists should understand the language, the history and the culture of the people they cover.
· Covering such a sensitive, nuance-ridden subject as the Arab-Israeli conflict, journalists should be careful in using such loaded words and clichés as “terrorists,” “gunmen,” “Islamic bombers” and “fatalistic Muslims”.
Yomna Kamel
When the New York Times reported the killing of a 10 months old Israeli baby girl and a four months old Palestinian baby girl in two separate stories earlier this year, the Palestinian Media Watch used them as evidences of what it called the US media pro-Israeli coverage of the conflict.
The Palestinian Media Watch analysed the stories and found out the headline used for the Israeli victim’s story was straightforward, active voice, directly accusing the Palestinians (Palestinians Kill Baby Girl in West Bank), while the magazine used a circuitous headline accusing the Israeli guns, not Israelis of killing a Palestinian baby (Littlest Victim in the Mideast: Israeli Guns Kill 4-month-old).
A photo of the Israeli baby, Shalhevet Pass, in her parents’ arms was shown with the story while no such a photo of the Palestinian baby, Iman Hajjo, was shown. “Both stories did not include a single quote from a Palestinian official while generous quotes (highlighted in light blues) from the Israeli Prime Minster, Ariel Sharon, and other officials were provided,” the Palestinian Media Watch stated.
Such a way of reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict might have reinforced Arabs’ beliefs that they are not fairly treated by the US media and prompted them to accuse it of being biased. If the American news media are really biased, why are they so and what should the Arabs do to gain better coverage of their news?
In an attempt to answer these questions, Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with the Religious News Service from the Arab World, RNSAW, invited two Western media experts to a session of a six-week workshop titled 'Comparing Western and Egyptian perspectives in covering current affairs'.
Ralph Berenger, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo and Arne Fjeldstad, an associate professor of communication at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Communication Excellence, focused their discussion on the framing theory as a possible explainer of the way the Arab-Israeli conflict in reported.
Framing, according to Berenger, is how people make up their minds about a given situation. It is trying to explain how people get pieces of information, accept them, and perceive them through the process of selective perception. In perceiving information, people are affected by two internal mechanisms: the core opinion frame and the peripheral opinion frame.
The core opinion refers to the individual’s strongly held values and attitudes that are difficult to change while the peripheral opinion refers to the individual’s world view and the things that interest him. When receiving new pieces of information, the peripheral opinion frame selects what should be perceived and what should not according to values and attitudes held in the core opinion frame, he said.
When reporting stories, media practitioners tend to frame the issues affected by their core and peripheral opinion frames. “Each reporter is first a citizen of his country of choice or of birth and his primary loyalties to it,” Berenger said. Reporters are affected by their loyalties and sometimes they add to the problems by slanting, choosing what to cover and ignoring some aspects that might, if reported, help smooth the situation, he added.
Some reporters even distort the facts to fit in pre-conceived actions. They pre-conceive the stories before doing it. They come with certain bias out of their core opinion frame, he said.
Berenger discussed an example of framed reporting. There were eleven pictures taken by the AFP of a Palestinian man while being stopped and shot by Israeli soldiers in a checkpoint. Excluding a picture of a dynamite belt the Palestinian man had around his body or in the car makes up a different story.
Let the Truth speaks out:
Though Berenger admitted the hardness of getting out the truth, he said professional media practitioners could overcome their biases in reporting through recognizing their own preconceived ideas about the stories before they cover. “A professional knows himself or herself and his or her biases. First step is to recognize them,” he said.
Journalists should also understand that their coverage contributes to “a spiral of silence” among their readers and viewers. Berenger stated that spiral of silence is a common phenomenon in our societies where “voices that differ from ours are stilled by overwhelming covering and the perception that their comments are unwelcome or could even draw a hostile response if they differ from the accepted line.”
The third solution he suggested was to encourage editors to select photographs and stories that tell the story without inflaming the public emotions. Most important of all, according to Berenger, is to search for common values.
“Try to identify your personal frames and how they fit with universal values. Then, try to analyze the opposition’s frames and how they fit with universal values,” he said. “These values define our ‘humaness’. Some universal values that cut across religious, ethnic, cultural and social boundaries are truth, love, loyalty, honesty, freedom, respect, pursuit of happiness and the desire to be safe.”
A view from Europe:
Though the accusation of being biased is not only directed for the US media, but extends to the European continent also, Arne Fjeldstad said there has been a noticeable shift in the European media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The European media tend to be pro-Palestinians because of Europeans’ perception of the word ‘occupation’. “After years of suffering from the German occupation, the Europeans have understood the meaning of occupation,” he said.
Fjeldstad presented what he called ‘the Potter Box’, which attempts to explain how journalists should frame their reporting. “The Potter Box contains four steps. The first is the empirical definition, which is related to understanding the facts about the issue of concern, and the second is to identify the values, which involves outlining the values inherent in the decision. The third step is appeal to ethical principles and the four is choosing loyalty,” he said.
Though Fjeldstad’s view of media practitioners’ duty seemed far theoretical than Berenge’s, both highlighted the need for journalists who understand the problems they are reporting and who have the power and responsibility to go beyond their own loyalties for the sake of revealing the facts.
Instead of framing the stories in a way that serves the journalist’s own interests and loyalties, Fjeldstad said it is legitimate for the journalist to add his own description of the situation after presenting the facts, but he has to clearly tell his readers that these ideas are his.
Attention given to the coverage of Arab news, especially the Arab Israeli conflict, has been mounting since the September 11th attack on the US.
A month before Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute in cooperation with RNSAW, organised its six-week workshop, the World Association for Christian Communication, WACC’s, the North American Regional Association, NARA-WACC, and the U.S. National Council of Churches’ Communication Commission co-organized a conference titled “Megaphones and Muffled Voices: What Constitutes Full and Fair Media Coverage of Israeli-Palestinian Issues?”
More than more 80 journalists and academics of diverse affiliations participated in the conference and agreed on a code of practices.
According to Carol J. Fouke-Mpoyo, a media liaison at the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.SA, the code of practices they have reached include these points:
· “The best of journalists do not only report what they see, hear or are told by official sources. They dig beneath the surface. They strive to get the other side or sides of the story.
· Balance of coverage is not achieved only in providing equal space or time to each side. There is no balance when an articulate, moderate and charismatic person is asked to represent one side and an uncompromising, militant, fiery and inarticulate ideologist is offered as a representative of the other side.
· Headlines should reflect the content of the story. Photographs should give a fair and accurate image of an event and not exaggerate an incident simply because the photograph is exceptionally dramatic.
· As much as possible, journalists should understand the language, the history and the culture of the people they cover.
· Covering such a sensitive, nuance-ridden subject as the Arab-Israeli conflict, journalists should be careful in using such loaded words and clichés as “terrorists,” “gunmen,” “Islamic bombers” and “fatalistic Muslims”.
Yomna Kamel
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